Virtual Vandals

red — from embarrassment.

Had Leif really intended to enter that chat room as a walking doodle?

Then Matt thought for a moment. The stick figure would offer him a perfect disguise. And if Leif was right, it would get him noticed. Matt decided to give it a try. So what if he wound up feeling like an idiot? He could always disconnect, and nobody would even know that Matt Hunter had been there.

Matt looked down and saw he wasn’t red anymore. He reached out with one stick-figure hand for his gold thunderbolt. His other hand grasped the red pawn with the destination and password.

He gave the subvocal order. Launch.

Matt swirled wildly across the neon cityscape of the Net, heading into areas he’d never explored before. The virtual constructions here were spread out more widely — surrounded by security zones, Matt suddenly realized. The developers had also fooled around more in designing them. Matt flashed past what looked like a neon graveyard, than a glowing replica of Dracula’s castle, and finally came to a halt at a set of red-and-gold gates.

A hulking, faceless figure confronted him. Matt quickly flashed the password he’d been given. He had no desire to find out what that glaring creature of light did to intruders.

The glowing gatekeeper flashed, transforming into a tall, thin man in an old-fashioned tuxedo — the image of a headwaiter at a super-expensive restaurant.

“Please follow me, sir or madam.” The waiter spoke with an accent — French, Matt realized.

He stepped through the gateway, to find himself in a setting of the sort he’d only seen in holos. Matt stood in a large hall, decorated in the style of the ’90s — the 1890s. Everything seemed to be red or gold — red satin wallpaper, plush red velvet drapes and chairs. Brassy gold columns held up a ceiling that seemed to be hammered gold leaf. Private balconies were trimmed with gold. Even the flame of the old-fashioned gaslights had a golden glow.

Part of the hall was set up as a restaurant, with black-clad waiters zooming among the tables. Another part was a casino, full of games of chance. A small orchestra played ancient music for an almost empty dance floor.

But most of the huge space was just an expanse of red-and-gold rug, where figures of all sorts walked, sometimes passing, sometimes speaking to one another.

Matt found himself staring. Off to one side was a giant red-and-gold robot whose head almost scraped the ceiling fifty feet above. People stood in his (its?) outstretched palm, chatting. A superhero swaggered by, every muscle showing in his skintight uniform. Behind him hopped a perfectly natural-looking frog — except that if this frog stood up, it would be a good six feet tall.

Another figure passed by — Matt recognized it as a cartoon character he’d followed on Saturday mornings. Beyond was something even weirder — a human skull haloed in fire, floating in midair at about eye level.

Well, Matt thought, guess I don’t have to worry about fitting in.

“First time at Maxim’s?” a girl’s voice asked from behind him.

He turned to find a young blond woman who looked, well, normal — except for the fact that she was very beautiful.

“Um…yeah,” Matt admitted.

“You’re turning red!” she said, laughing. “I love it!”

“I think it’s a fault in the program,” Matt said in embarrassment.

“No, it’s great,” the girl insisted. “What’s your proxy name?”

“I don’t—” Matt began.

“We’ll call you Mr. Sticks,” the girl said. “I’m CeeCee, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, CeeCee.” Matt knew he was staring at her, but this woman looked familiar. Then it hit him. She was a soap star on the HoloNet, Courtney Vance!

Or rather, he warned himself, she’s the image of Courtney Vance. Who knows who’s behind the mask?

“From the way you don’t seem very impressed by all this, I’d guess you come here pretty often,” Matt said.

CeeCee laughed, twirling her long blond hair around one of her perfectly manicured fingers. “You mean I don’t bother getting dressed for it?”

Compared to the elaborate getups on most of the proxies in Maxim’s, her clothes were refreshingly down to earth — jeans and a loose sweater.

Then Matt found himself staring again. He’d have sworn that CeeCee’s sweater was purple. Now it seemed to be dark blue. No, light blue, which was now shifting into green. “Do your clothes go all the way through the spectrum?” he asked.

The girl laughed again. “It’s a design for a real sweater. Something to do with microfiber optics and a phased discharge.”

“What happens when the battery runs out?” Matt asked.

CeeCee glanced at him. “I dunno,” she confessed. “Maybe it goes transparent!”

“Good idea if you should just wear it in virtual, then,” Matt said. “The worst that can happen is that you’ll be rated Holo-R.”

“Nah, this is just a onetime thing, Mr. Sticks,” CeeCee replied. “You keep turning up in the same proxy, and people begin to guess who you are.” She nodded to a big buff barbarian dressed in a wolfskin. “That’s Walton Wheatley.”

“Walt the Weed?” Matt burst out. The guy had gotten the nickname because he was so tall and skinny.

“You know Walt?” CeeCee said. “Do you go to Bradford, too?”

You’re supposed to be here finding out about these people, Matt silently scolded himself. Not giving them information.

“Got me,” he had to admit.

“There are lots of kids from Bradford here,” CeeCee said. “Although they all want you to think they’re in college — or even older.” Scowling, she hooked a thumb at a tall red-haired woman with bold blue eyes and nothing much on. Oddly, most of the proxies seemed to be avoiding her. “She’ll tell you she works at her family’s brokerage, but she’s really in my class. That’s Pat Twonky.”

Besides suffering from a comical name, Pat was a big lump of a girl with a sullen personality. Now Matt understood why people were staying away.

He also realized that CeeCee had just told him that she went to Bradford.

“I guess I should thank you for the warning,” Matt told her. “But ripping away people’s masks is a dangerous hobby. Now you’ve got me thinking about you. Do I just go with the blond-and-beautiful image I see here, or should I try to look behind it? Maybe you’re just a wannabe blonde — actually you’ve got stringy, mousy-brown hair.”

“Yikes!” CeeCee exclaimed. A couple of strands of hair wrapped around her finger came loose. Unconsciously, her fingers tied them into a little bow. “What a nasty thing to say!”

“Or maybe you’re a computer geekette who’s just here to see how the other half lives.”

“More like the other ten percent,” CeeCee corrected. “Is that why you’re here?”

Matt ignored the dig. “Suppose,” he went on, “you don’t exist at all! Maybe you’re a computer sim, set up to clue in newcomers to Maxim’s.”

CeeCee had to clamp her lips together, but they curved enchantingly upward. Matt could barely hear her laughter. “You’re terrible,” she said. “And paranoid, if you’re worrying about flirting with a sim.”

“Helps keep me real,” Matt replied. “What else can I do when I meet someone who looks perfect no matter what color her sweater is?”

You’re letting yourself get distracted, a little voice warned in the back of his head. He was saying things he’d normally never say to a girl. But working from behind his proxy, it was just so easy to go with the flow, to play the game.

Beyond CeeCee’s smiling face, a new figure swam into existence — another visitor arriving at Maxim’s. The newcomer was a tall female figure, completely surrounded in a cloud of veils.

The veiled woman started past them, then suddenly whipped round to confront CeeCee. “Hey!” an angry voice demanded. “I thought players here were supposed to come as proxies, not copies.”